The Burning of Angels
by wildcatt
Summary: Absolution, and ways to live without. Kunoichi-centric.
1. Prologue: Tenten

_Scent of plumeria, and the smell of burning.  
Not one or the other, but both. Destruction, and the blossom._

_-Marilyn Krysl, 'Warscape with Lovers'_

**Prologue: Tenten**

* * *

The return to sanity is a broken road, as usual. Her body jerks and shudders – lips part softly at the warm sting that burns behind her eyes and creeps up the curve of her spine – muddied eyes empty and widen, staring with gradual clarity at the scene before her.

A young mother with dirtied flowers in her hair. Her son, sliced cleanly in half, lying face down by her feet. Two kunai rammed down the throat of the husband. A few feet away, an elderly man stretched bleeding and rubbed raw across a boulder. There's more.

Tenten feels her heart gape wide open when she realizes the blood on her fingertips is still warm. It's supposed to be quiet; the screaming has long ceased from broken mouths but a harsh keening still vibrates in her mind, clawing through the dissipating haze. She wonders where it comes from as she examines the bodies, the corpses scattered like rotting blossoms and ash down the entire length of the sun scorched valley.

One hundred and forty two refugees, slaughtered by the steel scattered amongst them: _her _weapons, flung from _her _hands. Recognizing genjutsu had never been her strong point, and Neji - bringing up the rear with the other hundred or so refugees - had intervened far too late. The attackers are no where in sight. She supposes they have long fled; after all, a brief twist of dark fingers and a few muttered words are all it would have taken to complete the justu that had momentarily filmed over her vision, transforming her charges into the very enemy she had been assigned to protect them from.

Tenten blinks dazedly against the glare of the sun and worries that the bodies will decompose too quickly in the acrid Suna heat.

"Neji?" she asks uncertainly, but the Hyuuga's gaze is fixed on the smear of blood on her lips and it is much too obvious that he is thinking: she will be killed for this.

There is nothing he can say anyway, and in the end Tenten only turns away to watch her dead.


	2. Chapter 1: Kurenai

_A second time, to have him near again -  
A paper image to lay against her heart  
The way she laid his letters, till they grew warm  
And seemed to give her warmth, like a live skin.  
But it is she who is paper now, warmed by no one._

-_Sylvia Plath, 'Widow'_

**Chapter I: Kurenai**

* * *

Five years after he is killed on duty, Sarutobi Asuma lounges in his usual chair by their bed, smoking a cigarette as Kurenai watches him in the dark. Her anaemic, lithe limbs are spread pale across the cream coloured sheets, fingertips rubbing absentmindedly at the faded wine stains on his pillow. Misao is fast asleep in the cot by the window, jet black curls framing her fragile features.

He knows the child isn't his.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, searching his face for any signs of anger, disgust. She's gone through this scene god knows how many times now but his face is always blank, completely void of emotion. (Void of life, really, but now is not the time to admit it.)

"I know." He nods, takes another drag from the cigarette. A pause. "She's a beautiful girl."

"I wish she were ours," she confesses, turning away and staring up at the ceiling.

"But she's not."

"No," Kurenai sighs. "Please don't be angry at me, 'suma. Please."

Asuma doesn't answer, instead moving towards her and sitting on the bed by her side. He brushes his knuckles against her cheek and she shivers at his touch, cherishing the feel of his coarse skin against hers.

"Forgive me?" she asks him softly.

He leans down and kisses her tenderly on her shoulder. "I forgive you."

_Unfaithful bitch._

She sits up abruptly. The genjutsu is dispelled in an instant; its hold on her had been weak from the start because it's never easy to cheat yourself this way. She'd had to practice it for nights on end, conjuring up ghost after ghost – her mother, father, sister, sensei – working hard to perfect this slow form of self-destruction and re-construction, until she was sure she could do it well enough to conjure _him. _Except now his absence is only further emphasized; she hates the pristine, untouched look of the chair, the way the bed sheets hadn't creased beneath the weightless apparition. The empty spaces are untouchable.

Dawn is breaking. The shadows in her room stain dark violet and a thin, watery light washes over Misao's porcelain skin. She watches her for a moment, both hating and relieved at the way she resembles her much more than the stranger she had drunkenly fucked.

Not that she can even remember what he looks like, anyway. Not really. (She doesn't want to.)

Sighing, she slides off the bed and pads over to the cot, trailing lightly across her daughter's smooth forehead with bitten fingernails. (She's what, thirty-five? And yet still so much like a girl.) A thumb slid deftly down the cool dip of her neck pulls soft, damp hair away to reveal a thin gleam of ivory that almost appears to severe her right shoulder from the rest of her body.

There is a pale, pink scar that begins at Kurenai's inner thigh and cracks vertically upwards along her left flank, ending abruptly where her womb rests beneath her skin. A phantom pain throbs rhythmically at the sight of her daughter's – disfiguration, birthmark, abnormality - whatever it is that Kurenai cannot name. A curved sliver of white bone juts out from the child's perfect skin: a smooth ridge formed atop her delicate right collarbone, emerging like a pristine thread flung back over her shoulder.

The bone is razor-sharp, and Kurenai had almost been sliced open from the inside during a difficult birthing, blood welling up and coating her baby in slick, thick red. Shizune had been forced to cleave open Kurenai when it became clear that something was wrong during the delivery; when Misao was finally wrenched out, wet and howling, the medic had calmly stemmed Kurenai's bleeding, stitched her back together, cleaned up the girl, and - after inspecting the small protrusion of bone with the detached concentration crucial to her profession - handed her back to the heaving, crying mother, with nothing in her expression to betray confusion or unease. (At the end of the day some things were better left untouched, unknown, and Shizune had had enough secrets of her own to know better than to ask.)

Kurenai doesn't know what the bone is, whether it is her baby's heritage from the Suna father or simply a fantastic abnormality. It doesn't matter; four years on only Shizune knows of the marking, Kurenai having kept it securely hidden from view since the birth with either clothing or genjutsu.

"I love you, really," she tells the child quietly, and tries to keep the guilt from seeping into her voice.

So this, _this_ is her baby (because she is not _theirs,_not her-and-Asuma's.) Misao. _Fidelity._

What a joke.

* * *

"There is no way any basic genjutsu could have blinded Tenten so completely and for so long," she tells Tsunade later, fingers drumming lightly on the edge of the Hokage's paper-strewn desk. "Tenten is no expert in the area, but she is hardly inexperienced and no less proficient than the average jounin." A thoughtful pause. "Given the sheer scale of the illusion, I would expect it to have been cast by a team, rather than a single user. That would explain its complexity and duration."

Temari had personally asked for Team Gai. The Suna forces were still stretched thin from a series of clashes with nomadic rebels in the North, and the displaced refugees from the area needed to be guided to safety. The combination of speed, long range perception and attack provided by Tenten and her team had made them the obvious choice for the job. Protecting three hundred and fifty four refugees seemed a daunting task, but the team had been given two local guides and the authorities had not expected much trouble; besides, mere guard duty should have been practically effortless considering their skill and reputation.

What they had not foreseen, however, was the fury with which the rebels reacted to the flight of those whom they saw as betrayers, defectors to the stronger, bullying Sunagakure.

"And do you think that the rebels could have come up with something like this?" Tsunade's gaze is sharp, worried; one of her best Kunoichi is currently being held in a Suna prison with the possibility of a death sentence hanging over her head.

"I've never heard of anything like it in any of the shinobi countries," Kurenai replies slowly, dubiously, "but the rebels come from the very outskirts of Wind country, and those smaller villages have always been more secretive about their abilities."

"That makes sense." Kurenai glances at Shikamaru as he leans back against a wall, arms folded. "But we can't help Tenten until we find out what she was put under."

"What is she currently being charged for?"

His frown deepens. "Mass murder of innocent civilians. Genocide."

"_Genocide?_But surely the Suna council – the Kazekage – they must know she would not have done it in her right mind."

"That may be the case," Tsunade interrupts tightly, "but as yet there is no proof that she had been under anything serious enough to have been unpreventable. And even if the genjutsu can be proven to have been too rare or complex to have been overcome in time, the fact of the matter is that she has killed one hundred and forty-two civilians. You... ...you can't be absolved for something like that so easily, unfair as it may be. Incompetence or ignorance is never going to be a complete defence here."

Kurenai bristles. "Tenten is hardly incompetent."

"I know," the Hokage snaps back, "but that just makes the matter worse, as there is less excuse for her behaviour. Gaara is doing everything he can to help her, but what happens to Tenten in the end rests entirely in the hands of the Suna court. We have no say in it whatsoever."

"Surely she can't be sentenced by their jurisdiction - I mean, she's a _Leaf_ kunoichi. "

"Hired under a strict contract by Suna forces," Shikamaru reminds her quietly. "Her plea right now can only be insanity, but even that may not save her from the death penalty. The only way we might lighten her sentence is to find out what exactly was used on her and to prove its severity."

A pause.

"We wouldn't normally ask this of you, considering your situation... ...but can you go, Kurenai?" Tsunade's voice is tired now, weary.

"I would, but... ...Misao..." Kurenai bites her lip. "Tracking the rebels and finding out what they used could take months and being that long away from Konoha... ..."

"We'll take care of her," Tsunade offers, but Kurenai steps back hurriedly.

"No, she is far too young. She needs me. You can't take a four year-old from her mother for so long, I don't care how well you treat her."

"Then take her with you." Kurenai starts. She hadn't noticed Shikamaru moving nearer. "You're the best we have. Tenten needs you."

"I... ..."

Taking Misao anywhere near Sunagakure is the last thing she wants to do, but Kurenai can't tell them why as she finds herself facing Tsunade's strained, haggard expression and the heartbreaking knowledge that somewhere out there Team Gai is missing their kunoichi, possibly forever.

"How long before they sentence her?" she whispers.

"Three months." Shikamaru shifts his lanky frame even closer and puts a hand on her shoulder. (He towers over her now. Kurenai remembers how he used to drawl at Asuma, spiky hair not even reaching past his sensei's elbows - then ends that train of thought abruptly, amputating her nostalgia.) "Gaara managed to persuade the court to give her a grace period of an extra month for evidence to be collected. They've refused to extend it for longer, however." A pause; he licks his lips. "The remaining refugees and their families are demanding for Tenten to be executed immediately."

"... ...I see." Three months. Kurenai's mouth is suddenly dry. Three months, to track down a nomadic rebel force in the vast deserts of northern Wind country, uncover their secret genjutsu and document it thoroughly enough for court.

"Kurenai." She turns to Tsunade, surprised at her gentle tone. "You can leave Misao with Shizune, if you want. She might be safer here; there's still frequent rebel activity near Sunagakure, and you'll have to travel even further up North... ..."

"She's coming with me." Kurenai shakes her head. "I'll have to treat this as a temporary move to Sunagakure...rent a place there, find her a nursery." Her voice wavers. "I've...I've been wanting a change in surroundings for a while now, anyway. But I'll need a partner, if not a team. Is there anyone free?"

Tsunade leans back, flicking through the thick personnel folder on her desk. "Sakura's here... ...but I need her with me. Hiro is free, and Moegi." Kurenai shakes her head. Hiro's genjutsu is the worst of his generation and Moegi's is not much better. "Kiba is also free, but resting an ankle injury. What about Hinata? She just got back last week from a long mission, but I think she's recovered enough by now to go with you."

"Hinata?" Kurenai thinks of the pale gazed young Hyuuga. She's missed her since the breakup of the team. "She'll be a great help with the tracking." And can be trusted with Misao, she thinks, a finger unconsciously brushing the point on her abdomen where the scarring begins.

"I'll send for her, then. Can you leave by tomorrow evening?"

She nods. Tsunade stands up and smiles tiredly for her, the early evening sunlight illuminating her hair from behind and transforming it into a halo of spun gold. For a moment she is merely another aging woman – a beautiful one, but wearing thin and brittle around the edges. "Thank you, Kurenai."

"I'll do my best," she promises, turning to leave a little shakily. "Excuse me. I need to collect Misao from my mother's."

"I'll walk you there."

She glances sharply at Shikamaru but he is already slouching out into the corridor and she can only call to him as she follows, closing the door behind her. "Shikamaru? You don't have to, it's quite far away."_Please, I don't want you to see her._

He only shrugs, hands digging deep into his pockets, and she bites her lip and says nothing.

The two walk through the streets silently, crossing the main square before she turns off into a quieter civilian district and stops. It is late summer: the sun still casts a warm glow across the multi-coloured patchwork of residential rooftops despite it being nearly seven, glinting off the clustered leaves of the nearby banyan and infusing her normally cold, pale skin with a golden hue that she knows Asuma loves. Had loved. Her heart lurches; she calls to Shikamaru.

"I can make my own way from here." She doesn't mean to be unfriendly but the idea of him, Asuma's favourite, being anywhere near Misao makes the skin prickle at the back of her neck. "Thank you, Shikamaru."

He pauses mid-step but only glances back over his shoulder, the light throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief. Kurenai takes a step forwards and forces a polite smile. "I'll see you tomo-"

"Kurenai?"

She blinks as he slowly turns to face her, eyes never leaving hers. "Yes?"

A slight hesitation, then: "Your daughter, Misao... ...she's not Asuma's, is she."

It is not a question. Her eyes widen and suddenly she is cold despite the sun.

"I... ...how did you... ..." And she is already lost for words, stuttering like a young girl. _Shame on you, Kurenai. Thirty-five and still -_"Wh-what are you talking about?"

He shrugs and she wonders dazedly why there is no anger in his eyes, no disgust at her betrayal.

"Misao, she... ...everyone just assumed she's his, but... ..." He trails off deliberately and raises an eyebrow, letting her finish for him.

Kurenai swallows, briefly squeezes her eyes shut. "No, she's not." Fingers clench into a fist by her side. "How did you know?"

He shrugs again, gingerly shifting his weight from foot to foot. "You never let me drop by to see her, no matter how many times I've asked. You don't take her with you when you visit his grave. And Tsunade...Hokage-sama mentioned something about a scar. A protrusion, rather, of bone." The corner of his mouth twitches up into a smile, but it is not bitter and his eyes are only worried, kind. "I'm pretty damn sure that's not from Asuma's genes."

It takes a moment before she can speak again, and when she does her throat feels raw. "Tsunade-sama knows?"

"Shizune told her. She was worried about you. But no one else knows apart from the three of us," he hastens to assure her. She nods slowly, trying to take in all the information at once, the two of them standing at the corner of the street together, ignored by the trickle of passersby going home for the evening.

"So," he begins again after a moment, "who's the father?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know," she tells him quietly, and she can already feel her cheeks burning from shame but she forces herself to clarify: "I don't know him. I...It was after a bad mission. In Sunagakure. I was drunk. We haven't been in contact since."

"I see." His expression is thoughtful as he leans back against the wall, gazing up at the pink-tinted clouds drifting overhead. 'No wonder you were so uptight about going."

"You're not angry?"

He makes a small sound, half snort half chuckle. "No, of course not. A little disappointed, I guess, because it would have been nice to have something of Asuma left to – I'm sorry," he apologizes hastily at her mortified expression. "I didn't mean to – ah, how troublesome. Kurenai - I'm not the most tactful of people and – what I mean to say is, I don't blame you. At all. I don't think Hokage-sama or Shizune does, either. No one will, at any rate, even if they find out."

"Why not?" Her voice is small, and he smiles wryly at her.

"I don't see how anyone _can_be angry at you for having someone else's daughter. And," he continues gently, "you know Asuma would have loved her no matter who fathered her. She's _your_ baby."

Silence, as his words sink in. Suddenly Kurenai is finding breathing difficult; she takes a step back, fingers curling tightly into the fabric of her skirt. A whimper escapes from her mouth and she clasps a hand over it but it is too late and she is crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and wetting her fingertips. _A grown woman crying like this, really, Kurenai?_

"You think so?" she asks a flustered Shikamaru.

"What, that Asuma would have loved her? Of course," he affirms, sounding almost bewildered. "Kurenai.. ...how could you have thought otherwise?"

"I don't know," she murmurs thickly, stepping closer to the shadows so the passersby won't see her bawling. "But I did. Still do, really... ...I hated myself for having done it, for having had her, because Asuma... ..."

"Please don't cry," Shikamaru mumbles, before groaning: "Ah, this is so troublesome. I really have no idea how to deal with crying women, you know, not that Ino hasn't inflicted it on me often enough." He pats her a few times experimentally but she only steps back, shaking her head.

"It doesn't really change a thing, you know," she tells him. She's glaring at the ground through her tears but all she can see is Misao, fast asleep in her cot, tiny fingers curled around a soft lock of hair. "All I've wanted these past few years is for Asuma to come back and tell me he can forgive me for having my baby."

"Of course he wouldn't have blamed you –"

"You don't know that. He's gone." Kurenai shakes her head again. "This damn guilt – sometimes I...I think that I can hate him – for dying, for leaving me all alone, but mostly because I'll never get rid of this wretched feeling of having failed him. But then...but then I realize that it's _me_I hate and that there's no one there to forgive me, not anymore." Her voice breaks. "I didn't even get the chance to apologize."

There is no reply for a while. When she next looks up she finds Shikamaru watching her with something akin to pity in his eyes.

"Is it that important to you?" he asks finally.

She bites her lip, says nothing.

"You're right, you can never be forgiven by a dead man. Are you going to hate yourself and Misao for the rest of your life, then?"

Kurenai frowns. "Not Misao, no. I... she's my baby. I love her." But she is almost ashamed to admit it; she can't help but love her daughter but it almost feels like she _shouldn't, _that somehow it makes everything worse.

"Can't that be enough? You're not alone. You have Misao, even if she's not Asuma's. No one knows for sure whether Asuma would have forgiven you, but I'd bet a hell of a lot that he would have, eventually, and that he would have loved Misao like his own. Isn't that enough?"

_Is it?_

"I don't know," she mumbles, but for now she is tired of crying and so she furiously wipes the wetness from her cheeks, straightening up to look Shikamaru in the eye. She takes a deep, shaky breath. The sun is warm on her skin and she thinks: Misao is waiting for me.

"I have to go." She begins to walk away, leaving Shikamaru standing by the wall. Then she stops – turns – smiles unsteadily at the student her dead lover had favoured the most, and says, "You can come with me, if you want."

Shikamaru raises an eyebrow and she clarifies her offer. "Would... ...would you like to meet my daughter?" _Mine_. Hers, only hers.

Kurenai cannot be forgiven by Asuma (or perhaps the truth is that Kurenai cannot be forgiven by herself, not yet), and Misao is not Asuma's little girl. Yet the realisation that other people know the truth of Misao's birth has lifted one burden from her shoulders. There is no use pretending her child is someone she is not, and now she decides to invite Shikamaru to meet Misao at last – not as Asuma's daughter, but her own. Kurenai's.

"Sure." Shikamaru shoves both hands back into his pockets and smiles. "Lead the way."


	3. Chapter 2: Ino

_God would forgive me  
But I –I whip myself scorn, scorn._

_- Damien Rice, 'I remember'_

**Chapter II: Ino**

* * *

She finds it amusing, now, when the target compares her to a flower.

Her male comrades know better than to make the comparison, but she encounters it too frequently during her missions. It had stung a little when she heard it the first few times, a small tugging at her heart reminding her of who she thought she would be, what she used to believe; after all, long gone are the days of girlish aspirations, of dreams shared publicly and prettily coded with metaphors of flowers and blossoming (or whatever rubbish she had told Sakura-pig all those years ago). The only flowers kunoichi can ever aspire to be are the dead ones, rotting and bleeding their colours dry for the sake of Konoha.

Or a bigger pay packet. But mostly Konoha.

These days, though, she finds herself able to laugh at the stale joke, and so she merely twists her lips into a coquettish smile, tossing pale blonde locks over a bared shoulder. Thank you, she says. Would you like to join me tonight? It's awfully lonely around here and my bed is big enough for two.

_Good morning, whore._ She surveys herself with brittle humour the next morning in the bathroom mirror, carefully reapplying the lipstick smudged off from last night. Even after all that has changed Ino is still as vain as ever. She gives a short, dry bark of laughter at the thought. _How trite, really._

Her cunt is sore. There are raw teeth marks puncturing the pale skin of her left breast, love-bites along her throat and one more dead man sprawled across the sheets of her hotel bed. Konoha is safe for another day, thanks to the secrets she'd ripped away from him with each arch of her back, each lick of her tongue on sweaty skin. Ino wonders why she still cares.

After a moment's cool deliberation she supposes that Konoha is her home, and she supposes that she likes it and its occupants to a satisfactory degree. (It's all a lie, of course. Ino knows she's doing this because she fucking loves Konoha, loves her idiotic and beautiful friends, family and sensei - loves them so much that it hurts more than anything a groping politician or soon-dead criminal could do to her.) Funny, then, how she can't bear to _live _near them. Ino hasn't stayed in Konoha for longer than a fortnight since she turned eighteen, taking mission after mission, volunteering for all the jobs that take her away from her village for as long as possible. Wind, Rock, Wave, Rain. She's seen them all but she hasn't seen Shikamaru or Chouji in a month, Sakura in nearly two, has never seen Kurenai's baby or her pa's newly decorated flower store. Merely thinking of them makes her feel unclean; actually being around them is almost unbearable.

By afternoon she is back in Sunagakure, the base from where she has completed half a dozen small jobs over the past three weeks. Tsunade has simply taken to sending her on batches of such missions in and around Wind country, effectively lending her to Gaara as a further cementing of the two villages' strategic ties. She wanders through the market, buys a skewer of grilled meat and leans against the wall of a teahouse, watching the colorful throng bustling in the street and trying to ignore the dull ache between her thighs.

"Got back early?"

A familiar figure separates from the crowd and makes his way towards her, smiling affably through purple face paint.

"Hey, Kankurou." She doesn't bother smiling back. He crosses his arms and eyes her sympathetically.

"Tough mission, huh."

She shrugs.

"So you still up for dinner tonight?" He tilts his head to the side. "Haven't yet shown you that restaurant I ranted about last time and the guilt over your deprivation kills me silently inside. You'll like it, promise."

"Maybe….." She's genuinely apathetic but flips her hair coyly anyway. Flirtation is a habit now, a skill, done more out of instinct than for any real pleasure.

"C'mon, you said you were up for it last week."

"Yeah, okay." He wouldn't have taken no for an answer anyway, and Ino feels a flutter of annoyance and shame in her chest at the way he immediately grins smugly at her. _I am not a charity case, _she wants to say, but she doesn't because she shouldn't and he hasn't stopped finding excuses to treat her nicely since the evening he found her crying in a deserted office in the Kazekage tower, months ago, trying irrationally to wipe away the bruises left on her thighs by a particularly nasty target of hers who had a penchant for hurting his women.

"I commend you for your wise decision." He flashes her a thumbs up and adjusts the puppets hanging from his shoulders. "Pick you up from the offices at seven?"

Ino smiles faintly. "See you there." And then he is gone, and she throws her meal away and wanders down the street, feeling the grit gather between her toes and her sandals, the hot sun prickling at her neck. The Kazekage tower looms craggily in the background and she begins to amble in its general direction, planning to complete some paperwork before evening settled and Kankurou whisked her off for yet another pity session.

His reaction had hardly been dramatic when he found her, curled beneath a desk, rubbing at the bruises marring the pale skin of her inner thighs. Most shinobi knew better than to intrude on another's privacy when they were mentally or emotionally unstable. Kankurou had stayed outside the room, framed by the white glare from the corridor, watching her look away and shrink into the shadows before leaving without a word and closing the door gently behind him. She'd been surprised and wary, then, when he had suddenly appeared the next evening at the bar she frequented, approaching her corner with a bottle of sake in one hand and inviting himself to the seat beside her. She'd greeted him with no more than a curt nod; they'd seen each other around the main streets every so often, sometimes alone, sometimes with another woman or man in tow, but had never spent time in each other's company outside of work until then.

_"Explored the place much by now?" he asks casually, leaning back and biting down on the rim of his bottle with a faint click. He looks faintly ridiculous in the trendy bar with perky kitty ears and face paint still on. The dim light gleams along a strong, square jaw line, cleanly shaven._

_"Just the main touristy areas." She shrugs. "The plaques, the Hokage monuments. Central Fountain."_

_"Pretty pathetic, if you ask me."_

_"I didn't."_

_"Why don't you let me show you around?" She rolls her eyes and turns to reject the obvious pick up with a bitchy retort, but pauses; he's offering her a genuine smile and his eyes are on her face instead of her chest. Or legs. (Unlike the four teenage pups slouching across a nearby table, ogling her newly acquired tan with obvious approval.) He's only pitying her for last night, she realises, but she's too tired to care and pushes the thought away, giving him an appraising look instead._

_"When?"_

_"I'm free most of tomorrow," he offers hopefully._

_"Meet me at the main square tomorrow at three?"_

_"Sure thing." A thumbs up and a boyish grin; she's momentarily reminded of Naruto._

_"It's not a date, you know." But she's smiling already anyway, damn him._

_"Got it." His grin widens. "Not a date. 'Course not. Absolutely platonic. No shenanigans whatsoever. Nope."_

And that had been that. For the past few months he'd continued to ask her out every time she returned to Sunagakure for yet another batch of missions; for reasons she'd refrained from thinking about Ino had continued to agree to them, though she had never deluded herself into thinking that his attention stemmed from anything other than pity, concern for a foreign shinobi living away from home and obviously struggling alone. Ino feels the familiar sting of humiliation when she remembers this and briefly considers canceling their dinner tonight. She can still turn back, search him out and tell him to leave her the fuck alone because she doesn't need him, not this way. Not like this.

"Ino-san." A glimpse of pale skin, a light tap on her shoulder; Ino turns around and her eyes widen in surprise.

"Hinata! Hey…..I didn't know you were coming." It's been a long time since she's last met the other woman. She scrutinizes her discreetly, noticing the way she really is standing straighter now than before, the way her hands rest casually by her side. Ino is glad for it.

Hinata smiles wistfully and shrugs.

"I'm here with Kurenai-sensei for Tenten-san," she tells her softly. "We arrived in Sunagakure just last night. Are you going to the headquarters?"

"Tenten's back already?" Ino asks blandly as they begin to walk down the street. "I thought her team wasn't supposed to arrive with the refugees till tomorrow." Hinata hesitates, a confused expression on her face.

"You haven't heard…..?"

Ino glances at her sharply. "Heard about what?"

"But I thought that you'd –"

"I've been away for the past week," she explains impatiently, frowning. "Has anything happened to Tenten?"

"Well…..something went wrong with the mission. There was a raid on the refugee train." Hinata licks her lips, keeps her eyes on the road ahead. "We think it might have been genjutsu from the rebels up north that caused it. Tenten-san, she…..she killed half the refugees before anyone could stop her. It wasn't her fault."

Half? Ino's throat has gone dry and she stops in her tracks. "That's more than a hundred dead. My God, what are they going to do to her? She could be fucking executed for that!" The Hyuuga does not reply but flinches at her words. Ino knows that it is answer enough. "Where is she now? What's happening?"

"Be careful." Hinata puts a warning finger to her lips, lowering her voice. "The civilians don't know yet; Temari-san's doing her best to control the situation, so the surviving refugees are still being kept some distance from the village. Tenten-san's being held in the interrogation cells. Kurenai-sensei and I have been given three months to find the genjutsu she was put under so we could perhaps lighten her sentence….look, I'll explain everything on our way there." She puts a hand on Ino's elbow and guides her gently forwards. "Kurenai-sensei is there already, we should hurry."

Twenty minutes later they have made their way down to the basement of the Kazekage tower, hurrying through the clinical, perfectly compartmentalized offices of the Interrogation unit. Ino feels something twist deep in her gut when she finds three of Team Gai leaning silently against the wall, closely watched by several Sand shinobi while a few feet away Temari exchanges tense words with Kurenai near a glass paneled cell. Tenten is sitting alone inside, eyes blank, shackled hands resting heavily on the table before her. _She is not an exhibit,_ Ino thinks angrily as she thrusts forwards, not even bothering to greet the others_. This is ridiculous, how can they treat her like this and oh God why isn't anyone in there to help her?_

"Tenten?" she asks uncertainly, but the kunoichi can't hear her and does not even look up when Ino presses a palm against the cool glass. Temari turns and rests a hand on her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be here." Her words are hesitant and the warning half-hearted. Ino ignores her and pulls away.

"What do you know so far?" She looks imploringly at Kurenai. "Kurenai-san?"

"Not much." Kurenai is rifling grimly through several reports. "The interrogation officers here have done their best but Tenten can't provide enough information, unsurprisingly. She can't determine when the genjustsu started, only when it ended, so her portrayal of what happened can only be what the illusion had consisted of – what _she_ had been made to see - but not what had really happened during the hallucination."

"That's all?"

"Well, we have one lead…it's not much, but we found traces of a certain type of pollen–"

"Kurenai-san," Temari cuts in impatiently, standing up straight, "she hasn't been authorized to know about the classified information. If this leaks out there'll be nothing I can do about the public reaction and God knows I've found it hard enough to keep things quiet for now. Ino-san, please -"

"Tell her." Neji's voice is cold, detached. He's refusing to look at them, but his expression is so hard Ino can see the brittleness threatening to fracture him from the inside out. "Tell her what she needs to know," he demands again, and Lee steps forward by his side.

"Ino-san is good with plants, Temari-san. Please." He crafts his words too quietly, carefully, and Ino hates the audible, almost begging lilt in his tone because for once Lee actually sounds _afraid._

"He's right, I've been trained, it's my clan's secondary expertise…..I can help." She looks the other blonde in the eye. "Tsunade-sama will endorse my addition to the investigation team, I'm sure."

Hinata nods. "I can vouch for that."

"Is that so?" Temari snaps back testily, running a hand through the wild tangles in her hair. "I doubt this is a good idea, you-"

"Let me help her, damn it!" Her voice is rising because she is desperate – they wouldn't really force her to stand by and just _watch _her friend be condemned, would they? Could they?

"Don't talk to me like that! You…oh you know what, fuck it." Ino sees her steal a glance at Tenten through the glass and bite her lip, hard. "Do what you want," she growls, half in frustration and half in poorly concealed worry, nodding stiffly at Ino before turning on her heels and striding away. "I'll deal with the paperwork. You'll be excused from your missions for the time being. Let me know what you decide later."

"Thank you," she calls after the other blonde, but Temari only waves a hand dismissively and disappears around the corner.

"So…." Kurenai gives a little cough once she is out of earshot. "As I was saying, we found traces of pollen in Tenten's airways – lungs, trachea, a touch at the corner of her mouth. We can't identify the species from a preliminary analysis, but we suspect that it might be a kind of….not sedative, no, but perhaps a substance that could cause her to be more susceptible to genjustsu. I don't see how she could have succumbed to it for such a lengthy duration, no matter how strong the technique may be."

"Is that so…..?" Ino frowns. She has never heard of any flower that could produce that effect. "How could it have gotten into her? Was it found on any of the refugees?"

"Nothing has been found on the few bodies that we've examined so far." Hinata shakes her head. "Besides, that's assuming the attacker spread the pollen into the air from afar, which could hardly have produced the concentration we found in her airways."

"So you're saying the attacker was right next to her?" she asks, surprised. "But then how would he have managed to escape in time after casting the genjustsu? I don't understand, this would mean that –"

"The attacker's corpse might be one of the hundred and forty two we've got kept in the morgue right now," Kurenai finishes smoothly. "A suicide attack, mostly likely."

"So if we can find a body with the pollen on it…" she trails off, raising an eyebrow.

"As I said, we've only had time so far to search through a few of the dead," Hinata tells her quietly, "and Kurenai-sensei and I simply don't have the time to stay here to complete the examination. We think it will be best if we leave tonight and directly investigate the nomadic rebel tribes up north."

"Then I'll do it." Ino nods. "I'll go through the corpses and see what I can find out about the pollen for the time being. And if I find the attacker's body…..?"

"It'll help us refine the search to a specific tribe, at least. We'll be back every few weeks or so to check up on your progress." Kurenai puts down the reports and leans against a nearby table, looking slightly relieved. "I'm really glad you're here, Ino."

"We've missed you in Konoha," Hinata adds, smiling, and suddenly Ino remembers all her shame and humiliation and the reasons why she really isn't worth this sort of sentiment from her friends.

"I've been busy," she shrugs, wrapping her arms around herself and forcing a smile. "I…..I guess I should be off to the morgue, then?"

"I doubt you'd be allowed in before Temari-san completes the authorization paperwork," the Hyuuga reminds her gently.

"Then I'll stay here with Tenten."

"There's no need." Hinata gestures discreetly in Team Gai's direction. "Tenten-san will be fine, they'll make sure she's alright… I think it's best they have some time alone. It's getting late and you look tired, perhaps you should just rest for now?"

"I...no, I'm alright." Ino hesitates; she's just recalled that Kankurou's supposed to pick her up in less than an hour. God, it seems so fucking _ridiculous _now, going out for dinner at some fancy restaurant as if nothing is wrong and Tenten isn't in danger. The mere notion disgusts her. Kankurou will have to wait. "I'll head to the labs, check out the pollen. I'm sure I can do _that, _at least."

"Ino-san –"

"Good luck, Hinata, Kurenai-san. Take care." She presses a hand against Hinata's cheek, takes one last look at Tenten's prone form and flees.

* * *

It is a little past three in the morning when Kankurou arrives at the lab. She hears the door open behind her and knows it is him by the hollow sound his puppet makes as he rests it on the floor. The room is dark and cold and reeks of bleach, a small circlet of light shimmering where Ino has been working alone for the past few hours. The pollen is foreign and impossible to identify without references, but it is far too late at night to ask Temari for books on the native flora and fauna; for now she can only experiment, tease out the characteristics of the impractically small sample of red dust collected from Tenten's body.

"Still working?" He's lingering by the doorway. She doesn't bother turning around.

"You didn't tell me about this," she says instead, the quiet accusation lacing her voice with steel.

He knows what she's talking about immediately and doesn't pretend otherwise. "You looked tired," he says simply, shoving his hands into his pockets. Ino pauses, glances back at him over her shoulder with an incredulous expression.

"What, so you thought you'd be doing me a favour by keeping me in the dark? Did you think I wouldn't hear about it anyway?"

"You had enough to worry about."

"Tenten is my _friend, _I have the _right _to worry about her!"

"I'm sorry," he offers, sounding decidedly unapologetic as he walks in and leans against the lab table. Ino sighs, puts down her work and turns to face him properly.

"What do you want?" she asks irritably, too tired to care that she's being rude.

"You should rest, you know, it's what most people do every now and then."

"I'm not tired." But it's a blatant lie that falters on her lips; her eyes are red and stinging from examining the tiny specks of pollen for too long. He raises an eyebrow acerbically and she scowls. "I don't want to sleep, anyway."

"At least stop working for a while. C'mon, Ino, you don't have to be so hard on yourself all the time."

"And you care because?"

"Because you skipped a dinner date with me?"

She glances up at him quickly. "It wasn't going to be a date."

"Fine. It doesn't make a difference." He shrugs. "Want to go for a walk?"

"At this time of the night? Don't you have missions tomorrow?" she asks, skeptical. Kankurou sighs dramatically.

"Alas, I happen to be a man who is often too willing to make such sacrifices for the general happiness and well being of others," he informs her, grinning smugly when she can't help but smile a little at his theatrics. "Anything's better than letting you rot here all night. Let's go."

And despite herself Ino follows when he turns and ambles out the door, down the stairs and out of the Kazekage tower. The desert is cold at night, the air less gritty. They make their way silently to the main plaza before turning left and heading towards the eastern gate. Her muscles are aching and she knows that he must be tired, too, but they keep walking and walking further out of the village. For the briefest moment Ino lets herself pretend that she's walking away from everything that entangles her with those she loves, the dirt and the grime and the shame and the hurt and the fear. (And yet….you can never really walk away from yourself, can you?)

"You should have told me anyway," she berates him eventually while they stroll through the streets, watching the solid clay houses thin into older, dusty shacks as they emerge upon the boundary between the village and the wide expanse of desert.

"I didn't want to be the one to break the news," he admits ruefully, tugging Karasu tighter against his back and glancing at her reaction.

"Oh," she says, not looking at him. "I see."

They find a bench near the gate facing the desert. Ino shivers a little at the feel of the cold stone against her bare skin and curls her knees up, watching the gentle dunes rise and fall towards the horizon, dyed indigo in the night. She can hear him breathing evenly nearby and it calms her, somehow; the stinging in her eyes has subsided to a dull ache and she looks sideways at him sleepily, examining the profile outlined in silver by what's left of the moonlight. Kankurou has forgone his face paint for the night and she's known for some time now that he's handsome underneath it, in a rugged, boyish kind of way, different from Sasuke but not unpleasantly so. He's coarser, more roughly hewn, and she's seen the way he can look so menacing when he's irritated, almost brutish, all strong lines and thick muscle, but really he's quite nice looking and laid back most of the time with his relaxed, steady grin and she's really falling asleep now, isn't she, because she can't seem to think coherently and….

Her eyes are slowly drifting shut when he catches her looking and raises an eyebrow.

"Enjoying the view?" he teases gently, and Ino is too sleepy to respond but she can feel the corner of her mouth quirking up into a smile anyway, damn him.

The next thing she knows is that she is being shaken gently awake. Kankurou is leaning close and when she blearily opens her eyes she can see the crack of light illuminating the underbelly of the sky. Dawn is breaking; the air is palpably warmer.

"Fuck, how long have we been here?" she murmurs, stretching out and sprawling lazily across the bench. Her fingertips brush lightly against his thigh. He doesn't reply and so she turns back and they watch wordlessly as the world fractures in the dawn.

Sunrise in Sungakure is a quick affair: abrupt, explosive, brilliant. The thin gleam lining the horizon trembles beneath a vast expanse of black, before it cracks and bleeds and stains outwards; for the briefest moment in time the world is poised on the brink of light and dark. Then suddenly the sky shatters, the blackness crumbles and the harsh Suna sun coats the landscape in hot, sweaty gold. The stars melt into a hard blue oblivion.

"Not very romantic, is it?" Kankurou almost sounds apologetic by her side, and Ino fights the urge to roll her eyes.

"No," she replies shortly. A pause. "I like it better than what we get in Konoha."

Konohan dawns are slow and lingering and rosy, and Ino thinks they are lies, all lies.

"Do you." There's a strange lilt to his voice. Ino looks up sharply and finds him staring at her stomach, a wide stretch of skin exposed where she had unknowingly let her shirt ride up against the bench. Bite marks puncture the pale skin, a throbbing trail that winds steadily up and disappears under the taut fabric at her chest.

"Don't look," she breathes out harshly, mortified, jerking up and tugging her shirt down.

"Ino-"

"Don't." Her cheeks are burning.

"It's not your fault." She stands up. He reaches forwards and grabs her by the hand but she tugs away rudely. "Ino, c'mon, I don't care-"

"I don't want your sympathy," she hisses, more panicked than angry.

"It's not –"

"Stop it, Kankurou, okay? Stop it. Stop trying to be so damn _romantic _and kind and – and what are you trying to do, convince me that everything's just fine? That out of missions I can just conveniently revert into some innocent, chaste little thing who looks forwards to receiving flowers or getting taken out on nice dinners and watching the fucking sunrise? What I've done during missions and _this_ -" she gestures at the desert, at the horizon where the dawn had bled itself dry, "- all these things that you're trying to thrust upon me, they can't coexist. Whores don't dream of the sun, Kankurou."

"_You_ do." He's standing up now, so close that he's towering over her; she tilts her chin up defiantly but there's no accusation in his eyes and she feels momentarily disoriented.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she sneers, and she's grasping at the periphery of her anger, trying to find solid ground to stand upon and fight this man who seems to think he can just wash away all the dirt on her body, all the kisses that taint her skin, but she can't seem to find the reasons to push him away and he's smiling and he's kind and he's gentle and rough and blunt all at the same time. "You don't, do you," she repeats, wincing at the way her voice falters ever so slightly and exposes a fleeting rawness that betrays what might actually be hope.

But he insists: "You _like _spending time with me. You like it when I show you around the village and take you out to dinner. You wanted to walk with me tonight and you enjoyed watching the sunrise in my company."

"And your point is?" she snaps, flustered and scared. "Kankurou, I'm…I'm not one of your damn puppets, you can't…." she trails off when he shakes his head.

"Don't be mad at me, Ino," he says simply. "I'm not trying to fix you."

She swallows. "Yes, you are."

"I would be a fool to try to," he tells her, and when he raises a hand to cradle her cheek she finds that she doesn't really mind, finds herself involuntarily leaning into his warm, calloused palm. "I just thought you wanted a friend."

Silence. She opens her mouth to reply but closes it again when she realises she doesn't know quite how to answer. She looks down, plays with the edge of her shirt; she still feels dirty, fouled with kisses she didn't want, and the shallow cuts still hurt along her hip and breasts like stinging reminders of the men she did not choose. But then his thumb brushes across the corner of her mouth: "…..Ino?" And when she looks up again she sees kindness, not sympathy, and she finally resigns herself to the fact that they're really not the same things and that he isn't offering her a cure, but something else entirely.

_So be it._

She arches an eyebrow. "A friend?" she repeats primly, allowing a small smile to flit flirtatiously across her face (and for the first time in a long time she actually _enjoys_ doing it). She trails a fingernail softly down his chest. "I have enough _friends,_ Kankurou." _Meow._

"Well, more than a friend then, I guess," he grins widely, moving his hand up to tousle her hair affectionately. Then he leans down, pulling her close to murmur into her ear: "C'mon, Ino. Give a man a chance, will you?"

_Will I?_ Ino wonders, but her arms are already coming up to hold him too tightly to be a _no_, and when she rests her forehead against his chest he is solid and safe and warm and for the first time in a long, long while Ino thinks that she will be alright.


	4. Chapter 3: Temari

_They cut your eyes wide open  
And pour into your precious head  
My reach don't go that far dear  
But please oh please don't let them in_

_- Radical Face, "Wrapped in Piano Strings'_

**Chapter III: Temari**

* * *

By the end of today Temari will be staring, wide-eyed, at the corpse that Ino is showing her in the glaring light of the morgue, a sinking feeling in her chest.

A few hours before that, while gazing down at the street from the Kazekage Tower during a particularly tedious meeting with the Suna Council, she will feel faintly ill as she watches her idiot brother rest a hand on Ino's ass in what he obviously believes to be a discreet manner. She will realise, with an awkward mixture of horror and smugness, that Kankurou has somehow managed to snatch up the hottest import from Konoha - that pouty, platinum-blonde bitch who has been strutting around with far more sass than Temari would normally tolerate around her alpha-female self. She will wince as she realises that this means she and her brother are both dating out of their village - from the same team, no less - and that such circumstances would no doubt be labeled by some as "traitorous" or worse, "cute".

For now, however, Temari is forgetting to drink her coffee. (Black, as bitter and caustic as her sense of humour.) It is five in the morning. The sky is an uneven grey, a thin wash of lilac seeping from the east. A faint chill drifts through the streets, curling into her apartment through the open window. Carrier birds preen on her windowsill. It has been two days since Kurenai and Hinata left for the northern plains in search of the nomads; she wonders how they are faring as she curls lazily into her chair, a leggy, feline mess of tanned skin and scruffy blonde hair, all wrapped up in an oversized white shirt. It's rather beautifully crumpled and smells like a certain Leaf shinobi. She hasn't bothered to button it up and a lacy scarlet bra is highly, unapologetically visible whenever she yawns and stretches out her long, lean body, pointed toes brushing lightly across the floor.

Fresh reports just sent in from teams on the frontier lie scattered on the desk. The rebels are proving elusive as usual, moving around with a rapidity that can only come with their extensive knowledge of the terrain.

A new bird dips into the room, carrying a Konohan tag. Temari unclips the scroll from its talons with a small, wry smile. _Shika. _The message is longer than usual. Her eyebrows arch slightly when a full page of ridiculous black scratching is revealed, instead of the one or two short, curt paragraphs they are accustomed to inflicting upon each other.

_"Troublesome wench", _she reads, rolling her eyes, "_The official tally of scandalous lingerie you have seen fit to leave (unnecessarily) at my place has now reached a total of fourteen. Chouji found your red thong behind the couch when he crashed here last night. Chouji has done nothing" –_Shikamaru having underlined the word 'nothing' several times for emphasis_– "to deserve that. Therefore I feel the need to repeat my polite request once more: for the love of god, woman, just let me know where you hid every damn piece of underwear so I can stop mortifying myself, my friends and my family with excruciatingly tangible evidence of your perversions. It is exceedingly troublesome and, may I add, highly unbefitting of the official ambassador of your dirty little sandpit of a village."_

_"Besides," –_and Temari is smirking because his sulky pout is perfectly legible in the writing – "_it is not as if you really needed to leave behind memorabilia of our sporadic sex life to keep me reminded that I won't see you naked for another two months. I remember that on a daily basis perfectly fine."_Her smirk widens into a grin. "_Cruel bitch."_

_Whatever you say, Shika, _Temari thinks with a vicious glee, perusing the subsequent paragraphs in a much improved mood. She knows he likes it, secretly. The rest of the letter is mostly administrative, generously speckled with his usual whining and musings on recent cloud formations. The final paragraph, however, is different. Temari stops and stares when she reads what he has written, lips parting slightly in surprise.

_"I need your help with something. You won't like it – actually, you'll probably hate it and threaten to disembowel me the next time we meet because you're an unfeeling harpy like that - but it needs to be done and I would far prefer that you do it over anyone else I know over there. Kurenai has brought her daughter, Misao, with her to Sunagakure. She turns five this October. This will be troublesome for you, I know, but keep an eye out for her while her mother is away? I am not asking you to take her in – god forbid - just check on her every now and then. Spend a little time with her" –_it is evident that even Shikamaru had winced at what he had been writing at this point, the handwriting growing noticeably crabbier – "_and just see if she is adjusting alright, maybe even take her on a day trip if you're feeling particularly humane. Get Ino to help if you want, but I've heard that she's been taking a lot of missions and I'd prefer for Misao to have someone with a more constant presence in the village."_

Temari blinks slowly, brushing her thumb across the paper with something akin to awe. A kid. A four year-old kid. Shikamaru, a supposed _genius_, actually wants her, she-of-absolutely-no-motherly-instincts, to take care of a _four year-old kid._What do they _feed _those things, anyway?

Forcing herself to inhale, Temari reads on.

_"Kurenai hadn't wanted to take the mission at first because of Misao. I know she will hate leaving her in Sunagakure when she travels out of the village. I pushed her to do it, and I suppose I feel bad enough about it to ask you to play babysitter… …eh, don't kill me, 'mari. Treat this as my payment for letting you steal my favourite pair of boxers. (Yes, I know you did it, it caused me far more trouble than you are worth.)_

_You'll understand the other reason why I'm asking you to do this when you see the child. Look out for the genjutsu near her right shoulder. Don't tell anyone. Kurenai wants to keep it hidden, so refresh the genjutsu if needed._

_Stay safe, wench. I miss you sometimes, when I can be bothered._

- _S."_

Temari stays very still in her chair for a long moment, slowly re-reading the last paragraph and trying her best not to succumb to a fundamental, mortal panic at the sheer thought of dealing with a child below normal genin-age. Kurenai's daughter… … she knows enough of Konohan gossip to guess that the father is Sarutobi Asuma, Shikamaru's dead sensei. It makes sense that Shikamaru is invested in the child's welfare. But a genjutsu? Why would Kurenai have put a genjusu on her own baby? She frowns, pursing her lips and rolling up the scroll.

She'll do it, of course. She can't deny the asshole anything, even if it's leaping ten miles out of her comfort zone and dealing with – she winces, takes a deep breath – a four year-old child. And he's right about her being more of a steady presence than Ino, at least. What with the refugee crisis rapidly escalating right at the gates of Sunagakure and Gaara gone to personally fight the rebels, Temari will be stuck in the village for a long while yet, playing the savvy diplomat.

_You owe me a big one, Shika,_she thinks darkly, standing up and terrifying the carrier birds from their perch with a moody, predatory glare. _God, Kankurou and Gaara better never hear of this._

* * *

"You're going to take care of _what?"_Kankurou crows a few hours later, jogging alongside Temari to keep up with his sister's furious, rapid-fire walking pace. "A _kid? A four years old kid?"_

"Yes," she grits out, restraining herself from punching her fist through Kankurou's gaping mouth and keeping her eyes on the street. _Of course _she had to have caught her idiot brother right as he left the nearby eatery after his second breakfast. Of course. _Just get there, find the girl, make sure she's fine, pat her hair or something and get out again._

"But you'll scar the kid for _life!"_Kankurou's eyes are bulging out. With the purple war paint he looks as if he is ten seconds away from having a seizure. Temari feels her patience ebbing away.

"Whatever," she snaps at him. "I'll be fine. I'm not adopting her, I'm just visiting her every now and then."

"No, seriously, Tema." He sobers up, grabbing her by the elbow. "_Seriously. _You sure you should do this? You're pretty much already the evil stepmother in any possible fairy-tale setting, _think _of this child's welfare, _seriously_. I don't want to come over to find you frying up some baby legs or other…child…body part."

He looks genuinely worried. They're nearing the gates of the nursery. Temari decides that she has had enough and grabs her brother by the shoulders.

"I. Will. Be. Fine," she enunciates each word in a low voice, trying not to scare the young civilian parents milling around the place. "Now. Go." So saying, she unloads her giant fan off her shoulders and whacks him brusquely to the other end of the street, petrifying every young parent in the vicinity before striding purposefully through the gates, fan in hand.

"I'm here to find a Yuhi Misao," she announces at the front desk, glaring down at the tiny, terrified receptionist. The receptionist squeaks out something incomprehensible and scurries off to find the director of the establishment, who turns out to be a middle-aged, matronly-looking woman in a plain green dress.

"Temari-sama." The older woman nods respectfully at Temari, looking surprised to see the kunoichi terrorising her clients. "May I help you?"

"I'd like to see Yuhi Misao, please," she asks more calmly. "I'm here on behalf of her mother, Yuhi Kurenai. The child should be here as a lodger, not under day care."

"Misao is staying here, yes." The director nods carefully. "Would you have any official documentation proving that you are authorised to see her? Anything from Yuhi-san?"

"No," Temari snaps, "but I can blow this place down in four seconds flat if you don't show me the kid _right now." _She slings her fan around for good effect and the director pales.

"Y-yes, I apologise….It was simply…formalities …to protect the children, I'm sure you'll understand ... this way, please. F-follow me."

Temari is led hastily through the low-ceilinged corridors of the nursery. Her smugness is quickly replaced by a feeling of being utterly out of place as she stares wide-eyed at the little chairs and cots filling each warm, pastel coloured room, the crayon drawings pressed proudly onto every wall. Copper-toned fans glide lazily above their heads, rippling the walls with slowly undulating shadows. Bright, curious eyes follow her as she hurries after the director, gingerly navigating a veritable army of younglings they suck on tiny thumbs and look decidedly adorable. Temari feels like a giant, like her limbs are garishly long, and worries that she will hurt them in their soft, helpless smallness. By the time they reach the backyard she is quite thoroughly alarmed and on edge. A loud group of children are playing together in a rare and carefully tended patch of long grass. Some tumble around the swings and slides, giggling as they fall flat on their backs, faces scrunched up into the pale morning sunlight.

_So many of them, _Temari thinks dazedly. _All so….happy._

Even the pouting, crying ones are doing so with an enviable, carefree abandon, knowing that within minutes they'd be picked up and cuddled, soft lips pressed to their forehead, a low tune hummed into their ears.

Had she ever been that happy with her brothers, growing up?

The thought is dropped abruptly when the director points to a corner of the yard, far from the crowd of playing children. A small, pale form is kneeling on the grass in a thin yellow dress, carefully hugging a ragdoll on her lap and staring quietly out at the sand dunes peeking over the Sunagakurean skyline.

"That's Misao over there," the director tells her. "She's only been here for two days and hasn't really settled in yet. The other children are not quite sure how to deal with her, I'm afraid. She's a little…different."

_A little different _is an understatement. Misao's paleness stands out markedly against the local children's darker, tawnier complexions. There is her mother's stillness about her, the same calm introversion and quiet, unnerving self-control. It is strange to see it in a girl of her age. Her eyes are enormous, heavy lidded, the irises tinted a deep, wine red and delicately ringed with black - Kurenai's eyes. Her hair is grown out past her shoulders, pooling like thick, viscous ink around the white nape of her neck. That the girl is lonely is heartbreakingly clear in the set of her thin shoulders, yet somehow she sustains it with a resigned serenity, an utter lack of bitterness, as if she is thinking: _this is the way things are. This is the way things should be._

Something inside of Temari crumples at the sight of the melancholy little girl.

"Does she play with the others?" she asks. The director shakes her head.

"Only with the doll we gave her." A pause. "Would you like to talk to her?"

Temari hesitates, then nods. They cross over to the girl and she stands up politely as they near.

"Amori-sensei." Misao forms the words carefully, almost whispering. The director smiles kindly and gestures at Temari.

"Temari-sama is here to visit you, Misao-chan. Say hello."

"Hello," Misao greets her, peering up at the kunoichi shyly. Unexpectedly Temari thinks of Gaara, before he became angry and cruel. Gaara as a small child: lonely, frightened, staring out at the world from equally large and unreadable eyes. She had been too afraid of her own brother to feel pity for him then, had been too young to understand the impact that her cold treatment would have on his psyche until it was too late. A familiar sense of guilt lurches sickeningly in her chest.

"H-hello, Misao-chan." Her voice comes out unexpectedly soft. She grasps for words – concerning what subject does one normally converse with a four year-old? "How are you?"

"I am fine, thank you." Misao's practiced politeness is infused with a childish gravity. She tugs a little unsurely at her hair, exposing her right collarbone. The pale patch of skin appears unmarked, pristine. Temari looks closer, narrowing her eyes, but finds nothing of note. Kurenai is not the best genjustsu-user in Leaf for nothing.

She crouches down so she is almost face to face with the girl. "Do you miss your mother, Misao-chan?"

"Yes," the girl says, again with that quiet serenity.

Temari smiles, a gentler, kinder expression than her usual feral grin. "She'll be back soon, I promise." She gestures to the ragdoll that Misao is clutching to her chest. "What's her name?"

Misao looks a little puzzled.

"Your doll," Temari clarifies. "Does your pretty friend there have a name?"

If anything Misao appears even more confused. "It's not a person, Temari-sama," she says.

A pause. The sound of children playing in the background sharpens slightly in the space left behind by what Misao has said.

Temari feels like her heart is going to break at the realisation that Misao is unable even to find some self-made company in the form of the toy; the child is already so irrevocably grounded in bland reality, so aware of the mediocrities of day-to-day life that she cannot bring herself to play pretend, to fool herself into some temporary comfort of companionship. That kind of loneliness can cripple a child; she'd seen it before in Gaara and had not been able - _had been too cowardly, _a caustic voice in her head says – to do anything about it.

"Misao-chan," the director admonishes her gently, embarrassed at her charge's bluntness, "you –"

Temari raises a hand to stop her. "It's fine, Amori-san." She reaches forwards and gingerly tilts up Misao's face, her thumb brushing against a soft round cheek. "My younger brother used to be just as cute as you, do you know?"

Misao blinks at her silently. Temari leans in cautiously, almost as if afraid of startling the girl, and whispers so the director cannot hear: "Are you happy staying here, Misao-chan?"

Misao's eyes widen as she stares at Temari, lips parting softly. She visibly hesitates; bites her lip; lowers her eyes, and says nothing, fingers bunching into the fabric of her dress. _Answer enough, _Temari thinks.

"Would you like to see Sunagakure?" she presses on, gently probing. "Should I take Misao-chan out for a trip?"

Misao fidgets a little. Her voice is timid but hopeful when she replies, nodding solemnly: "Ye-es, Temari-sama."

Temari grins. "Alright, then."

"Temari-sama, I'm afraid I can't let her leave the nursery without permission from Yuhi-san," Amori protests when Temari takes Misao by the hand. The kunoichi brushes her off with a wave.

"I will bring her back after lunch," she says imperially, knowing full well that she has absolutely no intention of allowing Misao to set foot in the nursery ever again. "Yuhi-san will not mind, I am sure. We are such great friends. Almost sisters. I will take very good care of Misao."

So saying, she leads Misao past the playground and back through the nursery, skillfully dodging crawling babies as Amori follows them almost tearfully, wringing her hands. Misao accidentally drops her doll on the floor as they are making their way through the corridor and Temari stops to pick it up.

"Do you still want this, Misao-chan?"

Misao shakes her head.

"Right, the other kids can have it then," Temari says brusquely, handing it to a surprised staff-member and lightly tugging at Misao's hand to continue on their way.

"But, Yuhi-san will…when she comes back..…." The director is pleading now; they are at the reception, Misao's hand still clasped tightly in Temari's.

"Don't worry, Amori-san," Temari says, taking pity on her, "I will make sure that you receive no trouble for this. Tomorrow morning you will receive a formal letter authorising Misao's discharge into my care."_Forged by yours sincerely, _she thinks, but the other woman does not need to know that. "Keep any payment Yuhi-san has made in advance."

"I… but she…"

"Have a good day." And with a quick nod Temari has guided Misao out of the nursery and into the street, feeling an unfamiliar kind of exhilaration. She takes Misao to the end of the street to make sure Amori is not following them before peering down at the girl.

"Misao-chan, you're not scared, are you?"

Misao looks up at her and says nothing, expression unreadable. This is when Temari realises that she has essentially abducted a small child, and that this is quite possibly _the _most irrational, impulsive thing she has ever done in her life. Never mind the fact that she possesses only the faintest ideas as to what taking care of a four year-old actually entails. She purses her lips, thinking.

There is no point doubting herself, now. She looks down at Misao.

"Wanna take a look around the village?" She grins, baring a canine. "I'll show you where all the fun parts are."

Misao nods, and Temari grins harder when the child tilts her head to the side and offers her a timid smile. "Come on, then, let's –"

"What the _hell _are you doing?"

Temari spins around to find Kankurou striding towards them, slack-jawed. She frowns. "You stayed around?"

"You're taking the kid away?" Kankurou asks her in disbelief, ignoring her question. "Are you _insane?"_

"Her name is Misao," Temari snaps, before lowering her voice to a hiss, trying to keep Misao from overhearing. "And I'm only taking her a week, two weeks tops. Before Kurenai comes back."

Kankurou pales. "You're planning to make her _live at your place?"_

"Look," she whispers impatiently, "it was clear that she wasn't happy in that little prison of a nursery, the other kids weren't playing with her, she's not used to Sunagakure and the best way to get around _that_, Kankurou, is to _show _it to her, not keep her locked up."

"But you're terrible with children," he replies simply, and Temari cannot even find it in herself to be offended because her history hardly says otherwise. Suddenly she feels a little crestfallen as she looks at Misao. She had only meant well….. …Misao had looked so utterly lonely back in the nursery, and she had thought that perhaps, just maybe, she could make a difference. She hadn't made a difference with Gaara, and Temari has spent the last fucking _decade _regretting her inaction.

"Look, Tema," Kankurou softens his tone, seeing his sister's unsure expression. "You can always just stick with visiting her instead."

A soft tug on Kankurou's sleeve makes them both look down.

"Kitty-sama," Misao says, voice barely audible above the noise in the street, "do you want to come with us, too?"

Temari blinks.

"Oh. I…uh…" Kankurou is clearly at a loss for words. "_Kitty-sama? _That's, uh…."

"It's going to be fun," she promises, before smiling sweetly and reaching up to curl a tiny hand around Kankurou's calloused index finger. "Temari-sama says she will take me to _all _the fun parts."

And it is then that Temari has the surreal experience of watching her idiot brother melt into a puddle of kitty-eared, purple-striped goo in three seconds flat, the battle-hardened shinobi blushing furiously and dropping to a crouch in front of Misao.

"Of course I'll come, princess," he tells her, mirroring her smile and ruffling her hair. "We'll have all the fun in the world and make the other kids jealous." A pause. "Though I wasn't aware that my beloved sister knew the meaning of _fun, _never mind the location of the 'fun places' in the village – OW! TEMA!"

"Idiot," Temari huffs, retracting her fist. "Well, are you coming or not? Or are you going to tell me that I'm not allowed to take care of a four year-old?"

"Fine, fine," Kankurou mumbles, rubbing his head sheepishly. "What are you going to do with her when you have to work, though? It's not like you're free to babysit her all the time."

Temari shrugs. "I'll take her with me when it's possible. When it's not, I'll hire a babysitter." She eyes her brother keenly.

"Oh, _hell _no." Kankurou blanches. "I ain't babysitting no kid. I'm a warrior! The village needs my skills in battle!"

She rolls her eyes. "Right, _Kitty-sama. _I'm sure you'll be able to spare an evening here and there."

"Temaaaaaaaa…."

"Are we still going?" Misao asks from below, peering up at them a little anxiously.

Kankurou melts for the second time that morning. "Of course we are, princess. No worries. My beloved sister and I are just working out the details." Turning back to Temari, he growls: "Fine, I'll do it when I can. But you'll need to pay me."

She glares at him in disgust. "What are you, twelve?"

"Fine, fine." He pouts. "Can I at least get a free meal?"

Temari can't help but chuckle, exasperated. "Fine. I'll buy you lunch later if you help me take her around now." She leans in closer to Kankurou conspiratorially. "What _do _kids consider fun around here?"

Kankurou smacks his palm against his forehead, dragging it down his cheek. "Dear god. Alright!" He opens his arms expansively, grinning down at Misao. "Captain Kankurou will lead the way in the Grand Tour of Fun around our historic and beautiful village of Sunagakure. Refreshments provided by Temari dearest. All rides are free!" So saying, he lifts a shocked Misao by her waist, setting her securely onto his broad shoulders.

Misao giggles, delighted, and grabs tightly onto the kitty ears on the hood of his coat.

Temari rolls her eyes and smiles despite herself, and as they begin to make their way through the streets she's already composing a letter to Shikamaru in her head. It begins with an indecent amount of swearing, and ends in "Y_ou knew this was going to happen, you bastard, and you're never getting your boxers back."_

They turn the corner. A breeze sifts through Misao's hair as she rests her elbows on Kankurou's head, brightly surveying the scenery.

"Where are we going first, Kitty-sama?" she asks - quietly, though the tremor of excitement is clear in her voice.

Temari's smile widens as she thinks: _this might work out, after all._

* * *

Just what _this working out _entails – as she learns gradually - is this.

Misao discovers that her bladder is full while they are in the middle of a large, open park exhibiting a variety of sand sculptures, and Kankurou and Temari spend ten minutes frantically running around trying to find the nearest public toilet. Temari is vastly relieved to find that Misao is capable of going to the bathroom herself, although she does need to lift up the girl in order for her to wash her hands in the sink.

When they eat lunch at a nearby restaurant, Misao dutifully eats her vegetables but has an undeniable preference for the sweeter things on offer. Temari finds herself lecturing the girl (nicely) on the crucial importance of getting enough nutrients on a daily basis. Misao nods, and doesn't tell Temari when Kankurou secretly slips her another red bean dumpling.

After sorrowfully bidding goodbye to Kankurou in the afternoon, Misao begins to succumb to the bewitching lure of an afternoon nap. Temari is forced to bring her along when she attends a conference with the Suna Council concerning the treatment of Tenten and the refugee situation. The village Elders arch their collective eyebrows, but say nothing. Misao is given a seat by the window next to Temari, where she sedately watches the pedestrians bustle by until falling into a soft, contented slumber. The elders restrain themselves from commenting once again when Temari rises abruptly in the middle of the meeting to pull a coat over the girl's sleeping body, just in time to catch Kankurou's ass-groping action on the street below.

An hour later, a new rumour circulates around Sunagakure, claiming that the great, ferocious Temari-sama has finally gone batshit insane.

Finally, at five minutes past seven, Temari stumbles back to her own apartment, Misao in tow. When she switches on the light Misao blinks once, twice, taking in the large, cool living room. The walls are eggshell white and unadorned, the windows tinted to keep out the harsh desert sun. A long table is lined against a wall, leaving space for only three chairs. Potted plants fill each corner: white lilies by the door, purple orchids near another doorway, small aloe flowers along the window. A large dracaena plant brushes the ceiling. The whole effect is simple, clean, quiet. (Visitors used to be amazed, expecting an interior as thorny and abrasive as its owner's behaviour in public; what they never realised is that a woman's home reflects her undisturbed core, the part of her person that she cultivates when in private.)

"Make yourself at home," she tells Misao. "Do you want a bath?"

Suddenly she groans, realising that she had forgotten to ask Amori for any of Misao's clothes or belongings. That will have to wait for tomorrow. For now she leads Misao into the bedroom, pulling clothes out of her closet. She finds a small brown shirt that Misao can use as a dress.

"Just give me your underwear while you take a bath, I'll put it in the wash and it should be done in two hours." Temari hands her the shirt, guiding her to the bathroom. She pauses by the doorway and hesitates. "Do you ….need help with this, Misao-chan?"

Misao shakes her head. "But okasan normally sits there" – she points shyly to the spot near the bathtub – "and talks to me."

"Does she." Temari sighs. "Alright."

She drags a stool into the bathroom, placing it on the tiles next to the bathtub. She helps Misao twist out of her clothes and runs the bath for her, making sure the water is at the correct temperature before allowing Misao to clamber inside.

"Did you have fun today, Misao-chan?"

"Ye-es." Misao is industriously cleaning her long black hair but she darts a glance at Temari, saying a little timidly: "Thank you, Temari-sama."

Temari grins. "No problem."

Then she remembers the genjutsu. "Misao….can I take a look at your shoulder, please?"

Obediently, Misao turns in the water so that her right shoulder is nearest Temari. "Do you want me to clean under it too?" she asks.

"Under it?" Temari frowns. She leans closer and traces a finger over the shoulder. Nothing, just pale, wet skin. "Under what, Misao-chan?"

Misao suddenly looks guilty. "Okasan said I shouldn't talk about it," she whispers.

"It's alright, don't worry about it," Temari reassures her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder and sending a faint surge of chakra across her skin.

The genjutsu is almost imperceptible. Deftly hidden, it had been folded expertly from the girl's collar bone to the bottom of her shoulder blades on the other side. No one would notice it without deliberately and knowingly looking for it. Temari performs the genjutsu release technique.

When the genjutsu dispels she finds a thick layer of waterproof bandaging wrapped around Misao's shoulders. In constructing the genjutsu Kurenai has somehow managed to target not any one specific person, but all those who happen to look upon – and indeed, touch - her daughter's body. Those under the genjutsu would see and feel only the normal, smooth skin of a regularly-shaped shoulder.

Temari carefully unwinds the bandaging, all the while examining the detail with which Kurenai had designed the genjutsu. She will have to rebuild it later. When the last layer of bandaging is removed she gasps – "Misao?" – and stares at the razor-thin slice of bone that is revealed, gleaming ivory curved sharply back across her shoulder.

"Okasan said I shouldn't talk about it," Misao repeats herself miserably.

"Don't worry, Misao-chan. I promise I won't tell anyone." Temari rubs her cheek comfortingly, before turning her attention back to the bone. She touches it gingerly, nearly drawing blood. "Have you always had this?"

Misao nods.

"Does it hurt you?"

She shakes her head. "Okasan says the other children in Konoha don't have it."

"I would imagine so," Temari says softly. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

* * *

She is doing the dishes when Kankurou knocks on her door. Misao is already fast asleep in her bed, exhausted after a simple meal of udon and vegetables in soup. Temari has not mentioned her birthmark since re-applying the bandages and making sure the genjutsu would still be effective on others. Incredibly, Kurenai had managed to build it with a combination of her own chakra and, to a lesser extent, that of Misao's, such that the genjutsu could be maintained even in Kurenai's absence.

"What's the matter?" Temari frowns when she sees Kankurou at the door, grim-faced.

"You need to get to the morgue, now. Ino's found something."

Her eyes widen. "Has she found the pollen on one of the corpses?"

Kankurou nods.

"What about Misao?"

He smiles wanly at her. "Kitty-sama came to offer his services as babysitter."

Temari laughs and gives him a quick, grateful hug. "Thanks, Kankurou. I'll be back as soon as possible."

Ino is waiting for her outside the building when she arrives at the morgue, hugging herself in the chill of the desert night. "Temari-san."

"You're onto something?"

The Yamanaka nods, a triumphant gleam faintly visible in her eyes. "I found traces of the pollen under the fingertips of one of the corpses. Male. Killed by a kunai to the throat. Normal in _most_ respects."

Temari narrows her eyes. "Except?"

"You should see for yourself."

They hurry into the laboratories. A few other members of the Suna Intelligence division are milling around, working the night shift. Ino leads her into the largest room, where four bodies have been laid out on the examination tables. She walks directly to the farthest one from the door.

"This is it," she says, gesturing to the corpse. The man is of average build, olive-skinned, with a shock of dark brown hair. His eyes are open – also brown. An ugly gash slices across his throat horizontally, cutting through the windpipe. A clean cut, efficient: Tenten's handiwork.

Temari's gaze, however, is already fixed on another part of the man's body. A fine sliver of white pushes out from his right collarbone, running smoothly upwards to curve with the shoulder. Ino silently turns the corpse onto its front. The bony protrusion ends just below the shoulder blade, sinking slickly back into flesh.

_Kurenai, _Temari thinks, dazed. _What the fuck have you done?_


	5. Chapter 4: Shizune

_I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind  
I'll do it all for you in time  
And out of all these things I've done, I think I love you better now_

_- Ed Sheeran, 'Lego House'_

**Chapter IV: Shizune**

* * *

The attack on Konoha begins at dawn. A scream severs the morning quiet like a mutilating scar, more a high-pitched, animal keening than any recognisable human sound; the shrill lilt of it is off kilter, somehow, speaking of something that has gone horribly wrong.

Konoha is sleeping and will be caught off-guard. The wind is strong and blows eastwards towards the village, sharply scented with pine and the coppery edge of blood.

It is already too late.

* * *

Raidou and Genma are loitering casually outside Tsunade's office when Shizune arrives in the early morning, the toxicology report tucked under her left arm. She catches a few lines of their conversation as she approaches. Raidou is gleefully ribbing Genma on the younger kunoichi he had been seen, ahem, _socialising _with last Saturday night.

"- should have seen the way she stared at you when you were getting drinks at the bar, seriously man you might as well have been a demi-god –"

Genma is discreet in the way he conducts his personal affairs, but he is handsome and aloof and notoriously apathetic when it comes to commitment - without being a psychopath, à la the Uchiha or Hyuuga - and so at age thirty-five, mature and accomplished (…the Hokage's personal guard! And good with his tongue, too … ) he is the subject of much interest amongst the kunoichi population in Konoha.

"- bit young, isn't she eh Shiranui, you absolute rogue –"

Shizune has heard that he's had a scattering of girlfriends here and there, none particularly serious or long-term.

" – best legs I've seen in a while though. Even longer than Yuugao's. Killer."

There had been a time when Shizune may have been made hurt and jealous by this banter, back when she and Genma had still been neighbours and teammates and she had harboured a well-concealed crush on the boy. But that time had come and gone two decades ago, and Shizune is far too pragmatic a kunoichi, too _old,_ to feel sentimental over such things as the boy next door - even if the boy next door is (had been) Shiranui Genma, and even if Shiranui Genma is (had been) her oldest childhood friend, the boy she had grown up with and waged mock battles against in the streets outside their apartment complex, all those afternoons after class was over at the Academy.

She is, after all, hardly a girl anymore. He is no longer a boy, either. These days they have settled on a civil, tenuous, _adult_ friendship, skirting carefully around each other.

They quieten down when she nears. Raidou offers her a slightly sheepish smile, his scar creasing across his cheek in a manner that is not unattractive.

"Morning, Shizune."

"Morning, Raidou, Genma." She nods at them both.

Genma nods back and twists the senbon between his teeth into the other corner of his mouth. He is calm and collected, completely unflustered by Raidou's teasing. "That about the pollen the Yamanaka girl sent over?" He glances meaningfully at the report.

"Yes. I just finished looking at the sample."

"And?"

"Better to let the Hokage know first," she declines politely, always mindful of protocol. Genma says nothing.

"She called us in for something," Raidou tells her, "but then she got a new report from the Kazekage's sister. Must've been important, because she suddenly shooed us out. We've been waiting out here for nearly an hour." He rubs the stubble on his chin ruefully. "I think she's waiting for you though, so just head in."

Shizune frowns. _This will not be good. _She knocks smartly on the door, _tap tap tap, _and waits for three seconds before she lets herself in, sliding between Raidou and Genma without looking at either of them.

"Tsunade-sama," she begins irritably when she sees the immense pile of unfinished paperwork on the desk, the sake flask perched precariously on a corner, "_Tsunade-sama, _you really need to –"

She breaks off abruptly at the almost pained look that Tsunade is giving her. She is leaning against the desk with a large photograph clutched in one hand, the other pressed lightly to her temple. Shizune turns immediately to close the door behind her, catching a glimpse of Genma's face before she swings the door shut. He had been watching her with an expression that appeared to vacillate between interest and apathy, perhaps even contempt. Shizune is too sensible these days to wonder why, and she pushes any curiosity or unease from her mind. There are more important things at hand.

"What is it?" she asks Tsunade. "What's wrong?"

"The toxicology report first." Tsunade sits herself behind the desk, sighing.

"It's as I had first guessed – a hallucinogenic." Shizune hands over the thick stack of paper. "The species itself is not something I have come across, but it's similar to a few strains of desert flower I've studied before. Its psychoactive effect is far stronger than those breeds, however, and –"she crosses her arms thoughtfully, thinking, "-it's particularly interesting because not only does it trigger changes in the mind by itself, it also amplifies genjutsu. Only a tiny amount is sufficient to significantly increase the physical reach and psychological impact of a genjutsu."

"So the genjutsu can be cast over a greater distance and hold the victim in a stronger lock."

Shizune nods. "And for longer."

"This is how they got Tenten, then."

"It seems the likeliest explanation. Tenten is not a bad genjutsu user, even if it's not her speciality." Shizune frowns. "Will this help her in the Suna court? The fact that she was incapacitated and could not have broken out of the genjutsu with normal effort?"

Tsunade sighs again. "I don't know. It's the best defence she'll have, but this will not be enough. We can't just point to the pollen. We'll need Kurenai to actually research into the genjutsu used before we can say for sure that Tenten could not have helped doing…what she did." A pause. She rubs her temple, already tired at six in the morning. "It's not the only thing we have to worry about right now."

"What is it?" Shizune forces herself to sound calm for Tsunade's sake.

"This just came in." Tsunade hands her the photograph. "They found the rebel who had carried the pollen to Tenten."

Shizune looks down at the photograph and suddenly finds that she cannot breathe, the air stilling in her lungs. She grasps at the corner of the desk. "Oh."

Tsunade is wincing. "Look familiar?"

Shizune stares down at the picture of the corpse, at the bone slicing its way out of the man's shoulder. "Kurenai's little girl," she whispers. She looks up. "Do you think she knows –"

"I doubt it. I think she's always assumed that the father was just a regular Sand shinobi." Tsunade's face hardens. "But she will find out soon. Sabaku no Temari wrote to say that Kurenai and Hinata have been dispatched to the rebel territories to investigate."

Shizune looks down at the corpse again. She had never heard of there being a shinobi clan bearing this type of physical …trait, but then again the nomadic rebels currently clashing with the Sunagakurean government have always kept tightly to themselves, preferring to remain independent from any shinobi village in the wild, barren desert. She shivers involuntarily, feeling the apprehension roll down her spine, cold and taut. Perhaps this man is the father. Who knows?

Suddenly she snaps her head up, the photograph crumpling slightly in a tightened grip. "Kurenai brought Misao over to Sunagakure. What if the authorities there find out she had a baby by a rebel? Kurenai's research would be ruled out on the sheer basis of conflict of interest."

"Shikamaru managed to get convince Temari to take care of the child." Tsunade smiles dryly at Shizune's disbelieving expression. "I know. I found it hard to believe at first, too, but then you know Shikamaru … She's promised to keep Misao's anomaly a secret. We'll just have to trust her. Shikamaru does."

"And Kurenai?" Shizune asks softly. "What do you think she will do when she finds out that …"

"What _can _she do?" Tsunade shakes her head. "Kurenai is one of the strongest kunoichi of her generation. She will fulfil her obligations and investigate the rebel jutsu as best as she can, even if …even if it is hard for her. Don't look at me like that, Shizune. God knows I don't want this either, but she is the only one who has the genjutsu expertise for the job."

"I know." Shizune bites her lip. "It's just –"

"Hokage-sama!" A hoarse shout, followed by heavy, shuddering footsteps; Shizune spins around to find the door being slammed open.

"_Hana!"_

The young Inuzuka heiress stumbles into the room, supported by Genma and Raidou on each side. Her arms are slick with blood, and Shizune starts because Hana, fierce, beautiful Hana is _sobbing. _She kneels down immediately to examine her wounds, noting with relief that the blood stems mostly from shallow cuts criss-crossing her skin. She gathers chakra in one hand to begin healing the crying woman, rubbing the other against the back of her neck soothingly.

Tsunade strides around the table, eyes blazing. "What happened?"

"The west gate," Hana chokes out, "we've been attacked. I was heading out for a training run with my team – could smell it drifting into the village, the air was too sweet, I knew there was something wrong but the sentries, and Ryuu – they started screaming – oh god, the_ screaming _- " she suddenly clutches at Shizune's sleeve, bloodied fingers curling into the fabric and leaving dark, gleaming stains, "- they couldn't escape in time, they're still there, please help them please –"

"Hana." Tsunade kneels down in front of the Inuzuka and places her hands firmly on her shoulders, forcibly stilling the shudders wracking her body. "You need to calm down. _Calm down. _We can't help the others unless you tell us what happened."

Hana visibly swallows a whimper and squeezes her eyes shut. "We were a few minutes out of the west gate when I smelled something in the air. Pollen. Not native to this part of the country. My dogs smelled it too and they knew it was dangerous, started howling. It was being carried in our direction by the wind. I tried to warn the others but it was too late. They - they were captured by genjutsu. I could feel it, the foreign chakra wrapping around my mind, and I had forewarning so I was able to guard against it in time, I could break it, but even then for a moment I saw – I saw what they were seeing." Her eyes open, bloodshot and haunted, and Shizune can tell that whatever she had seen must have been truly terrible. "The sentries by the gate started attacking each other. My team was alright at first. Sayuri's kikaichu had found the pollen too and she knew a genjutsu had been cast, but then Ryuu –" Hana sobs, rocking back on her heels, "Ryuu attacked her. I couldn't help her, he was too strong."

Shizune feels her heart sinking. Tsunade is staring wide-eyed at Hana, her grip tightening around the Inuzuka's shoulders. Shizune reaches forwards and pulls lightly at her wrists.

"Tsunade-sama, you're hurting her," she says quietly. She is just as stunned as Tsunade but forces herself to push all panic aside, to be useful to her mentor. "_Tsunade-sama." _Genma is watching her intently. She ignores him.

"I should have known this would happen," Tsunade murmurs throatily. "I should have realised the rebels would want revenge against us for helping Suna –"

"Tsunade-sama, we need your orders," Shizune urges, her tone harsher now, and Tsunade shakes her head, letting go of Hana's shoulders abruptly.

"Raidou, go find Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba. Anyone else with a natural advantage against genjutsu. Hunt down the attackers and bring them back here. Alive, if possible." She turns to Shizune, a hard glint in her eye. "You and Genma need to rescue those attacked by the gate. Save those you can and cordon off the area, make sure no one else is captured by the genjutsu. I'll send reinforcements after you. Hana, find Nara Shikamaru and tell him we need to evacuate the village immediately."

Raidou is already running halfway down the corridor by the time Shizune helps Hana stand shakily to her feet. Her arms are still bloody but the wounds have been healed over, pale scars lacerating the skin like barbed wire.

"Ready when you are, Shizune," Genma says quietly, and Shizune sees that there are suddenly twin knives in his hand, the curved blades pulsing with chakra.

She wipes the blood darkening her palms on her trousers and grabs the medic pack in the corner of the office. "Let's go."

* * *

_Uncle Dan had died in the night a week ago, Shizune's last remaining family slipping away from the world with ragged breaths that were visible in the crisp winter cold. Shizune had been asleep._

_It is evening now, and her uncle's body is lying in the morgue. The bleeding had finally stopped, but too late for him, and too late for Tsunade. _

_Tsunade is here in the apartment Shizune shares – had shared – with her uncle, hunched on top of the sofa. She is not crying. A mug of hot tea sits untouched on the coffee table. Tsunade stares blindly at the steam slowly drifting up, and Shizune is cradling her own heartbreak close to her chest, like she doesn't quite know what would happen if she were to let it go, but even then it is clear to her that Tsunade's heartbreak is so much worse, so much crueller, cutting deep ravines into her soul._

Oh, Tsunade …

_Shizune looks at Tsunade and thinks for the hundredth time how incomprehensibly beautiful the older woman is. She feels her heart constrict at the pain that thrums visibly through Tsunade's body, rendering her intensely fragile where strength once resided. It is taking everything Tsunade has not to scream, to push her body against something hard and sharp and shriek like an injured animal: every exhalation is deliberate and carefully controlled, as if something terrible would come out of her if she let herself breathe normally, a wild, unhinged grief that would destroy everything she knows, and so she embalms the sobs within herself until they crumple into her body, contorting her shoulders into stiff peaks. _

"_I'm coming with you," Shizune whispers. Her throat is dry. Tsunade is silent for a long while, though she does not appear surprised. _

"_What about your team?" Tsunade finally asks, looking at her with a closed expression on her face. Shizune thinks of Genma and Mitsuo, her boys. They had made chuunin only recently. Her uncle had been so proud of her …_

"_They'll be alright," she says, setting her mouth into a determined, childish frown, playing at being mature and grown up. She had always looked up to Tsunade. Tsunade needs her now, Tsunade needs to be taken care of now. "They'll live." _

"_They don't always." Tsunade shakes her head, voice cracking on the last word. For a brief moment, Shizune allows herself to imagine how she would feel if her teammates were killed. The fear is sudden, immense and painful, and she quickly packs away the feelings, smoothing the terror out of her mind as if it were a crease in her uniform. _

"_They'll live," she repeats herself calmly, disconcertingly level-headed for a fourteen year-old. "Genma's good at getting the two of them out of trouble. Mitsuo will stop being an ass eventually."_

_Tsunade accepts her judgement without further questioning. (There is something in Shizune's face that speaks to her quietly of Dan, and she cannot find it in herself to say no.) Later she will feel guilty for the responsibility she thereby placed on a child. _

"_Go pack and say your goodbyes," she says simply, uncurling herself from the sofa and moving already towards the door. "I'll meet you at mine before dusk." _

Shizune never ended up saying goodbye to anyone. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to. She had known Genma and Mitsuo would be furious with her for leaving without a word, but somehow the opportunity had never come up – there was just so much to pack, bills to pay in advance, the flat to seal up. Her uncle's grave to visit. Mitsuo was out when she passed by the Hyuuga compound. Genma hadn't been at home either when she stepped out of her apartment and locked the door – training with his older brother, probably. She hadn't waited to see if he would return, even though she had had an hour or so spare before she had to meet Tsunade.

Shizune wonders sometimes why she hadn't waited. Perhaps she could have told Genma she was leaving had she stayed a while longer, perhaps she could have said a proper goodbye instead of leaving Konoha wordlessly. Why hadn't she?

It wasn't that Genma hadn't been important to her, she reflects. Genma had been her best friend since they were toddlers, before they were drafted into a genin team with Mitsuo, and she had harboured a mild crush on him for years. It had simply been the case that Tsunade mattered more, Tsunade's grief mattered more. Tsunade had become her only link to her uncle, and she felt the absence of Dan sharply, a breathless pain slanting beneath her ribs. (The truth is that she had also been afraid; Genma wielded too much influence over her, she cared too much, and had he asked her to stay she may not have found it in herself to go.)

When she had finally returned to Konoha with Tsunade and Naruto, fifteen years after she left the village and the boy next door, she found that Genma had moved. His apartment had been sold to a jounin she did not know. A year later she moved too, switching to a small studio closer to the Hokage's offices.

Mitsuo had died as a chuunin. Genma had made jounin. She had never expected Genma to forgive her for leaving without a word, and had not been surprised when his reaction to her return had been cool and muted: not exactly unfriendly, but the closeness they had shared had dissipated, replaced by a carefully maintained distance and the faintest undercurrent of resentment. Too much time had passed. They had each grown into adults separately, had felt and thought and loved and lost too much separately. Their time had come and gone.

* * *

They find one of the sentries dead a short distance from the gate, slumped face down on the road. His partner is lying on the ground with a bloodied katana in his hand, staring unseeingly at the sky with his eyes rolled half back, screaming so loudly his back arches off the ground. Shizune takes one look at the man and knows that he is beyond help.

"We need to kill him," she says, trying to keep her voice steady. Genma stills.

"There is no way to help him?"

"No. Not even Tsunade can do anything for him now."

Genma nods, steps forwards and slashes the man's throat cleanly. The screaming abruptly stops but she can still hear a shrill keening in the air, or is it in her head? They move on, moving out of the village and into the forest, taking care to reroute their chakra every few seconds to prevent any genjustsu from taking hold.

It takes a full minute for Shizune to realise that Genma still trusts her, utterly and completely, and she finds that the revelation surprises and comforts her even as she smells blood reeking from the trees before them.

Aburame Sayuri is collapsed in between the thick roots of a scorched oak. The left side of her body has been burned raw and she is barely conscious. She gazes deliriously at Shizune's face when she hurries near, swinging her medic pack to the ground.

"Shizune-san …"

"Shh. Relax. You'll be fine," Shizune soothes the younger woman, holding down her juddering body when she cleans the burns with antiseptic. Sayuri gasps in agony, her kikaichu swarming up uneasily behind her head.

"Shizune-san … be careful …"

Suddenly there is a flash of colour in the periphery of her vision, and Shizune springs up instinctively into a defensive stance, eyes widening when she sees Tachibana Ryuu leaping down from the branches toward her. His features are contorted with terror and his fingers are moving impossibly fast, forming sign after sign. Flame flickers in the air before him; she can feel the heat prickling her skin from a few feet away. "Stop, Ryuu!" she cries, knowing that it is futile and that he cannot hear anything the genjutsu does not let him hear.

"Shizune!" Suddenly she finds Genma standing in front of her, shielding her from Ryuu. He is tall enough for his shoulders to block her view but she can see his wrists spinning, his elbows arcing up – the quiet hiss of metal lacerates the air, and she steps from behind Genma to see Ryuu doubled on the ground, senbon stabbed into each finger, his jutsu stillborn.

"Genma," she breathes, and he turns to look down at her, his eyes meeting hers steadily.

"Focus on healing Sayuri. I'll protect you both."

Ryuu is pulling the senbon from his fingers, seemingly oblivious to the pain. Shizune turns back to Sayuri and concentrates on controlling her chakra. She trusts Genma, too.

There is no way she can keep rerouting her chakra around her body if she is to heal Sayuri, meaning she will be exposed to genjutsu, but she has no choice: Sayuri will die if she does not close her wounds soon. Pale blue light crackles around her fingertips as Shizune focuses on shaping her chakra, sliding it under Sayuri's skin like a scalpel. It is immensely difficult and risky, operating on such a large wound in the open, but Shizune had not been chosen as Tsunade's first apprentice for nothing. She slides her palm over singed flesh, threading her chakra into ruptured arteries and veins, guiding Sayuri's body to rebuild tissue.

Sayuri's breathing is faltering. Her skin is becoming damp and clammy to the touch. Shizune frowns; she is going into shock. She sheds her jacket, covering the injured woman with it to keep her warm, and deftly strokes her throat with a thumb, opening up her airways with gentle pulses of chakra.

"Shizune." Genma is calling her, but there is no urgency in his voice and Sayuri's condition is fragile, so she keeps working, pumping chakra into her broken body.

"Yes?"

"Shizune." There is a strange hoarseness to his voice and the smell of burning is suddenly thick in the air. She looks up then. Genma is gone. In his place there is a corpse, or rather there is Genma's body, dying; it stands there looking down at her with horror and disappointment twisting what used to be Genma's face, except half the muscle has been burned away and she can see the gleaming white bone of his jaw: clean ivory. His body is smouldering even as she stares up at him; blackened, putrid flesh peels off slowly and drops to the ground, his intestines glistening sickeningly from his burnt-out abdominal cavity, slipping and sliding and falling out in slick, creamy strings. Ryuu is crouched a few feet away, smoke billowing softly from his bleeding fingertips, his gaze clouded with ash.

"Genma?" she asks faintly, falling back onto her heels.

"Shizune," the corpse whispers, taking a stumbling step towards her, a long strip of scorched flesh falling from his elbow and swinging against the charred bone at his thigh. She can smell the overwhelming stench of decomposition emanating from the body, of singed human flesh. "Why did you have to leave?"

_(They don't always live, Tsunade had told her. They don't always live.) _

Shizune opens her mouth and screams.

* * *

She wakes to find Sayuri sleeping on the bed next to hers, the left side of the Aburame's small body swaddled in bandages. She herself is in a clean hospital shift a few sizes too large, her skin slippery with ointment. They are not in a hospital. She blinks up groggily, squinting into a lone light bulb dangling from what appears to be a rock ceiling.

"Shizune?"

She turns her head, wincing at the pain that shoots up her neck. Genma is sitting by her bed, his back against the wall, a half-eaten apple on the small table next to him. Overnight stubble shadows his jaw. When she lifts her head slowly she can see that they are in a small room somewhere underground, or perhaps dug into a mountain. Three more patients lie unconscious around the makeshift ward.

"What happened?" she asks softly. She cannot help but stare at his face, at the unbroken skin, the even, unmarred features.

"Tsunade ordered the entire village to evacuate," he explains quietly. "We're in the emergency shelter underneath the Hokage monuments."

"Are we still under attack?"

"We don't know yet." Genma frowns, biting down on a senbon so that it sticks upwards. "No enemy shinobi have actually been located. The Inuzuka hounds are still howling like it's the end of the world, though, so the pollen is still probably in the air."

"I was caught by genjutsu?" she guesses, disappointed in herself. Secretly she thinks that spending the end of the world with Genma may not be such a bad thing.

"Yes." A pause. Genma stares at the door, then back at her face. He leans forwards, brushes sweat-soaked hair from her forehead. "You really scared me there, 'zune."

She's startled by his use of her childhood nickname. Suddenly she is reminded of a time when they were ten, mock-fighting on a familiar street. _The apartment complex they shared looms to the right. Genma is late for dinner; his mother will be angry at him, but he doesn't seem to mind. He is smiling openly at her, still breathing heavily from physical exertion, and his milky brown hair flops into his eyes as he says: "I'm really glad you'll be on my team, 'zune-chan. I know we'll be great together. You and me. And Mitsuo. We'll be great!"_

"What happened?" she asks now, shaking herself out of impending nostalgia. No use getting sentimental, Shizune. Be rational. Be useful. And yet a gentle ache is already settling along the bottom of her chest, heavy and sweet.

"You started screaming at me," he says. He keeps his voice casual, calm, but his expression is serious and it tells her that he had been worried. "You started screaming and you wouldn't stop. Something about how you had no choice but to leave. You said that Tsunade needed you." He chuckles wryly, a low rumbling in his throat. "Even caught in a genjutsu, all you think about is supporting the Hokage."

Shizune bites her lip, embarrassed. "And then?"

"And then I took out Ryuu and dragged all of you back here. Well, reinforcements arrived and they helped drag you back." He brushes the back of her neck softly with his fingers. "I had to take you out, too. Sorry about that."

She winces as she prods at the inflamed muscle with a fingertip. "Must have been a pretty hard blow, Genma. What, you holding a grudge against me?" she jokes, only to flush immediately at the inappropriateness of her comment. _Stupid, stupid –_

"Maybe," he says simply, grinning a little.

She looks away, not knowing what to say. "When will I be allowed to go? I don't feel that bad. Tsunade will be wanting my help."

"That keen to leave me again, huh?"

She turns back to stare at him. He's smiling at her good-naturedly, a hint of wistfulness in the gentle tilt of his mouth.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says stiffly.

"Yes, you do." He leans forwards, resting his elbow on the bed and prodding her in the cheek with a calloused finger. "….. Just don't make a habit of it, 'zune."

She swallows. When she speaks all the words come out in a rush, as if they had been there inside her all along, lingering at the back of her throat: "I had to do it, you know. My uncle – and Tsunade, she was the only one who knew how I – she really needed me, Genma, she …" She breaks off unsteadily, failing to find the words to explain herself. It's a bit late for explanations, anyway, and in any case she has a feeling that he's grown to understand her reasons on his own.

"I know." He sighs. "You're right. Tsunade does need you. I can tell by the way you act around each other."

"I'm not sorry," she says, tilting her face up obstinately even as a quaver quietly fractures each word.

"I know." There is no bitterness in his voice. He hand comes up to hold her chin gently. "I know, Shizune."

Silence.

"I missed you," he tells her mildly, brushing his thumb across her cheek. "Well, I was mostly angry at first, but then I realised you weren't going to come back anytime soon, and I ended up just missing you instead."

"I missed you too," she says truthfully.

"When you came back I became angry again, because I didn't know how else to react after not seeing you for fifteen years. I didn't really understand how you could simply decide to walk back in my life, just like that, as if nothing had happened and you hadn't abandoned me without a word."

"I didn't aband-" she tries, but the attempt dies in her mouth because the truth is she _had _abandoned him, deliberately and consciously.

"It's alright." He senses her discomfort. "I understand why you had to choose Tsunade." A pause. He flicks the senbon around his mouth lazily. " I would probably have done the same. She has a spectacular rack."

"You can't say things like that about the Hokage!" she laughs, sitting up and blushing furiously. Genma only grins. Something is mending between them, something that had lain broken for more than two decades; she reaches for his hand on the bed, and they are both in their early thirties - well into adulthood – but it still feels utterly natural when she smiles at him and says: "Friends?"

He laughs loudly, and she wants to lay her hand on his chest to feel the vibration. "Friends."

She beams at him and gingerly shifts to the far side of the bed. Raising an eyebrow, he clambers on, careful not to lean his weight against her body.

"You missed a lot, you know," he tells her when they are comfortably sitting side by side. "Like my jounin exam. I was brilliant."

"I'm sure you were."

"You missed Mitsuo's funeral, too," he says softly. Shizune does not reply, only settling her head against the wall. "He never stopped being an ass," Genma continues, and she lets out a soft exhalation, half-laugh, half-sigh.

"You missed my first near-death experience," she offers a little weakly. "I was experimenting with poisons when I was fifteen. Messed up badly on an antidote." She grimaces. "I threw up for a week. You would have been vastly entertained."

He laughs again. "Sounds like my first date. You missed that too. Well, you were supposed to be my first date, you know." He glances at her wryly, a little cheekily. "I had it all planned out when I was thirteen. But since you decided to vacate the premises while I was hitting the peak of puberty, that particular honour fell to Yamanaka Kumiko. I took her out to the fanciest restaurant I could afford and she got food poisoning. There was no second date."

Shizune chuckles a little reluctantly. Yamanaka Kumiko is still stunning despite having hit thirty-seven last month. "You missed my twenties," she pouts a little. "I was much better looking in my twenties."

"You're still good looking, 'zune," he says honestly.

She brightens up despite herself. "I am?" She reaches a hand to her hair, touching the short, roughly cut strands self-consciously. "I'm not blonde. Or blue-eyed." Unlike Yamanaka Kumiko, who is both, and leggy to boot.

Genma appears torn between bemusement and seriousness. He refrains from telling her that his preference had been securely settled in favour of black hair and large, dark eyes a long, long time ago, by the girl who had grown into the kunoichi sitting by his side. Blondes are attractive and all, but there is something about Shizune's quieter beauty that has always appeared timeless and untouchable to him, something about her self-control that sets him at ease.

Suddenly he slips the senbon from his mouth, embedding it with a flick of his wrist an inch into the wall, and he leans down fluidly to kiss her on the cheek, his lips briefly grazing the corner of her mouth. His body is warm next to hers, broad and reassuring and strong. "You're as beautiful as you used to be," he murmurs in a low voice, not moving his face from hers. "God, I missed you, 'zune."

Shizune takes his hand in hers. "I know," she says, leaning her cheek against his. "I know."


End file.
